Northern Japan · Yamagata · Tsuruoka

Ōgi Festival (Kurokawa Noh)

王祇祭(黒川能)

The old annual festival of Kasuga Shrine in Kurokawa, Tsuruoka, Yamagata. Kurokawa Noh, handed down for more than five hundred years by the shrine’s parishioners in two guilds, the upper and lower za, is performed on 1 February from the evening into the night in each guild’s tōya, a parishioner’s house, and on 2 February before the gods at Kasuga Shrine. Kurokawa Noh is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. 1 and 2 February every year.

1–2 February 2027

ConfirmedChecked against the organiser’s announcement.

90 days away

Every year, 1 February, for 2 days

Future dates: 1 February 2027 · 1 February 2028 · 1 February 2029

Origin

Kasuga Shrine, said to have been founded in 807, is the guardian shrine of Kurokawa. The name Ōgi Festival dates only from after the war; it was once called the New Year rite or the old annual festival, and is popularly known as the Tofu Festival. How Kurokawa Noh began was already unknown by the late Edo period, and oral tradition says it was brought by Emperor Seiwa, or by the attendants of Prince Ogawa, a son of Emperor Go-Komatsu. Scholars think the Mutō family, who ruled Shōnai from the late fifteenth century, most likely had a hand in it, and that it had taken root by the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The festival once lasted four days; hardship in the Edo period cut it to two, as it is today. Kurokawa Noh was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976.

What to look for

From about six in the evening on 1 February, Kurokawa Noh begins in the houses of both the upper and the lower guild and goes on into the night. Before dawn the Ōgi-sama, in which the god dwells, is brought from the shrine to each house. The evening’s programme opens with Daichifumi, danced by a child, then Okina and Sanbasō, and the first Noh, before Kyōgen and Noh alternate until a closing celebratory Noh. On the 2nd both guilds’ Ōgi-sama return to the shrine, where the first Noh is performed before the gods and the two guilds dance Daichifumi, Okina and Sanbasō together. In the afternoon come rites such as the exchange of sacred sake between the host and the priest, and by evening the festival ends by celebrating next year’s host houses.

How to watch

The Kurokawa Noh Preservation Society asks visitors to remember that this is a local sacred rite, not a tourist event. On the 1st the stage is a parishioner’s house, and the Noh is an offering to the gods rather than a show. The performers are all male parishioners, most of whom learn chanting and dance from childhood; today each guild has about seventy.

If you go

Watching on the 1st in the host houses requires advance application to the Kurokawa Noh Preservation Society, by 30 November of the year before. Apply by postcard, letter, the form on the society’s website or email; if applications exceed the houses’ capacity there is a lottery, with results sent in December. The rites and Noh at Kasuga Shrine on the 2nd need no booking: sign up at the shrine’s reception on the day and make a tamagushi offering. The Kurokawa Noh Village Ōgi Hall stands near the shrine, about 11 km by car from JR Tsuruoka Station and 8.5 km from the Shōnai-Asahi interchange of the Yamagata Expressway.

Where

Kasuga Shrine, Kurokawa

Tsuruoka, Yamagata

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Sources

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